Talks - Chemical Chaos, LSD, Youth

Chemical Chaos, LSD, Youth

Chemical Chaos, LSD, Youth

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
, 1998-11-06

Today Gurudeva gives an introductory talk about 'CHEMICAL CHAOS.' Drugs are a problem all over the world. In 1964 Hindu swami's stood up together against LSD. Gurudeva gives us a historical perspective concerning this time including readings from an inspired talk He gave on 'LSD people' and the psychedelic experience. The slow process of yoga is compared to the strain on the nerve structure and the shock of taking psychedelic drugs. Gurudeva calls for the LSD movement to stop. Gurudeva makes an appeal to the old souls on the planet. Gurudeva tells about the mind being opened to the lower forces. It is the young people who immediately suffer but everyone suffers later on. We do not need any more turn on, to young impressionable minds. Gurudeva makes predictions that have come true 34 years later in this talk as surely pertinent today as it was then. Gurudeva tells us to get to know the friends and parents of our children.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam, it's November 6th. It's quite a day.

We have our Acharya Palaniswami and Yogi Yuganatha departing for a convention on aids in the Midwest, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. They are inviting the religious editors of all the faiths to gather to talk about this very important subject.

Also, Rajkumar and Ananda are getting married today at the Siva Vishnu Temple in Livermore, California. Congratulations to you both.

Today, I am giving an introductory talk about 'Chemical Chaos' and reading parts of it for our friend, Marilyn Wong. Marilyn, we saw you on television yesterday at the County Council meeting working out your grant for fifty thousand dollars. Congratulations! You looked great. Marilyn is in charge of the 'Coalition for a Drug Free Kauai'.

Now, why on this beautiful Garden Island do we have to think about drugs? Well, we do. It is all over the world. It is a chemical chaos. Before they were invented, life was very nice in America. Then in 1964, everything changed. The Hindu Swamis all got together and decided to stand up against LSD and to say that it was not a good substitute for meditation.

Our elder Swami in the United States, Swami Satchitananda, met with Albert and Larry and they said to him, "We will make you a great Sivajnani. You will be a great prophet; just take some of this LSD."

He said, "I never really wanted to be a great prophet. I really wanted to be a medical doctor or a surgeon. Give me a pill for that!". They necessarily went away a little bit disappointed because he was not on their side and neither was I.

I would like to paraphrase and read just a little bit about an inspired talk that I gave and circulated into the hands of all those who were leaders in the drug movement at that time. At that time, drugs were legal. It begins in this way:

We have a new race of people, I call them LSD people. They are a new race of people that have manifested in bodies already in existence. Their feelings are different. They have different relationships with their family and a great gap has occurred between them and their parents. They are just like a another race from another country that have moved in among us, started to live with us, and we are having to adjust to them. We cannot say the psychedelic experience is good or the psychedelic experience is bad. In institutions in Menlo Park, it is being tested by scientists. But, we can say that it is an experience that has occurred to thousands and thousands of people.

I do not encourage you or anyone else to take mind-altering drugs. I encourage everyone to continue with the slow process of yoga. I want to awaken you to the fact that there is a new race of people among us who have a entirely different approach to life.

LSD puts a strain on the nerve structure. The individual then goes into shock and has a difficult time adjusting to normal routine. I am asking that the LSD movement be stopped. All the Hindu Swamis are asking that the LSD movement be stopped. I am asking the leaders of it to stop. For the sake of the protection of the youth against a drastically abrupt awakening that is going to open them eventually to the lower realms of the mind which will be beyond their ability to handle, and later on, beyond the ability of the law to handle.

You have heard of obsessions, you have heard of possessions. When a young person is opened up, he can be obsessed, he can be possessed and impelled to do things he had no intention of doing simply because his nerve system is sensitive and open to the various lower forces of hate, greed, mistrust, fear and malice. So, we are all asking and putting in a plea to stop the movement so that the youth are protected and can go forward in their evolution in life in a normal way. I am pleading to the intelligence, to the innate intelligence of the older souls and the educated people that are involved with the movement, to help stop the movement. (Because) When a movement gets going, built around a couple of men, who have some intelligence, then it becomes a society that has to have its own laws and its own forms of discipline. As this society grows and gains power, it becomes too large to handle. Eventually it gets out of control. Then we have, and will have 'Chemical Chaos'.

I do not want to see a nationwide movement built around a little bit of acid. I do not want to see that because of the young people who will be involved. When the mind is open to the higher forces of consciousness it is simultaneously opened to the lower forces because the whole mind has been opened up in the same process. There are great mood swings - elation, anger, happiness, depression. So then, where is the protection? A guru can protect his devotees in the opening-up process by closing off the lower as the higher opens.

It is the young people that are going to suffer immediately. Right now the movement is still young. So I am asking, we are all asking that the LSD movement be stopped. We are asking the leaders of it to stop it for the sake of the protection of the young people most especially. We don't need any more 'turn on'.

So I say enough has gone far enough and before anything drastic happens it should be halted. The movement is going through the young minds of the nineteen-year olds, the twenty-year olds, young impressionable minds. No education, no foundation that goes along with it. There will be a chemical chaos, we predict this, and young people come out of it beyond repair. It is when the LSD hits the streets and made available to one and all, we will see, in the future, hundreds of thousands of people groveling on the streets, if this is allowed to continue.

That was a talk that I paraphrased while reading, given in 1964, thirty-four years ago. That was a long time ago and we have all seen the chemical chaos that has happened and has now become a way of life. What shall we do about it?

We are asking all the young people to understand what is happening in the world around you. Just say, "No". We are preparing a little CD to give away freely. This we will use as an introduction along with a series that I have recently given which you have heard, that are on our Cyberspace Ashram. I know that I am talking to people are out there in cyberspace, who are listening, have been listening, who are gaining knowledge. We have people tuning in from Italy, and India and many, many, many countries of the world, including Australia, Norway, Sweden, France and of course, United States. We don't want 'Chemical Chaos' to continue. Let's be cool about it. Let's quiet it down. Each one of us, in our sphere of influence and you too, can put a stop to this by teaching the young people to say, "No". Get to know the friends and the parents of your children and be sure they mix with good company. That is the responsibility of every parent.

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So loved is Siva-Shakti that all have an intimate relationship. So vast is His vastness, so over-powering is He that men cringe to transgress His will. So talked of is He that His name is on the lips of everyone--for He is the primal sound.